Drive Time: 2023 Miami Dolphins Assessment

the flexibility they might have. We're gonna hear more from Chris Greer. We're gonna talk about some league leaders on this roster and break down more about the quarterback position. Plus pick the divisional round weekend games. We have a lot to get to on this one. From the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Drive Time Podcast. Maggie Gaffe. Did I get you guys with that longer pause? This time? I think I might have. So I wrote down here that I want

to do a quick Friday show. But every time I say it's gonna be quick, I wind up getting my rundown into three or four more points that winds up turning into three or four more three minute monologues, which adds on another twelve to fifteen minutes of the show. And that's why the show became a forty five minute program compared to a thirty minute program that it was three years ago. So I'm gonna try to keep it short, but wasting time right here already will not do that.

But I just want to kind of take a look at where we are six days after elimination. And again this is off script, to be quite frank, I really struggle this time of year, just the absence of football, on the absence of rooting against other teams, and you're just kind of playing out the string. I love playoffootball the best, but now that we've arrived as one of these teams that can compete at this level, it's a

lot harder for me to watch. And then, you know the whole I understand this time of year, people in their content wants and desires, look forward to speculation and here's what I would do, and here's my projected offseason, and we're gonna do a lot of that here. But it's a little more challenging for me because there are certain things we can and cannot do in that regard, but I like to push it up against the line and get ourselves into a position where I can tell

you my thoughts in a way that is appropriate. So I want to go back and just look at the team and what we saw this year and just do some overall thoughts, because you know, it's been a tough week for fans of the finn and I'm still very much struggling to reconcile with this fun ass year being over right, it sucks, But just you wait in seven months, because we always say it, we're not coming back. This team has to prove something to me that's not how

it is. In seven months, you're gonna be back in those bleachers with me absolutely charged up, watching Tu throw July dimes, Tyreek Hill for touchdowns, getting ready for another run of the playoffs, and maybe this can be the year we break through that playoff at victory door. We'll see. Speaking of playoffs, the worst performer on wild Card weekend wasn't actually anybody in a uniform. It was actually me. I went two to four in the wild Card round,

my worst week of the year by far. Those were tough games and obviously the Miami pick boned me in a big spot. I thought the Rams could come back and win that game and get that victory. Nope, the Cowboys. Wow, that was not what I expected in that game at all. I think the ones I got right was Pittsburgh and Houston. The rest we got wrong Tampa and in Philly Common And by the way, the Lions getting the Bucks in the second round. Damn it, that was supposed to be

our path. I keep thinking about the four minutes against the Titans. If that would have gone our way, you would have hosted Pittsburgh and then probably hosted Houston. If you just would have won that Titans game. You're that close away from all of this, a trip to the AFC Championship game essentially, and all of this talk being

completely void. That's why I like this whole podcast is going to be toping about using longer timelines to extrapolay expectations and forecasting opposed to one and a half games. That's when you make bad decisions. We'll talk about that here as we go along. Let's go ahead, though, and pick these divisional round games real quickly. I'm taking all Chalk, Okay, Baltimore over Houston Buffalo over Casey. Is Casey favored in that game? They shouldn't be. Buffalo is gonna, I think,

gonna roll them. I'm rooting for the Chiefs, not like Deshaun Elliott, Go Chiefs in that one, big time. Would never root for the Buffalo Bills. In fact, the one thing that's gonna make this offseason even worse than it's already gonna be is if the Bills win the freaking

Super Bowl. I don't think they will. If I think they're gonna go to the AFC Championship Game against the Ravens, and then I have the Niners over the Packers, which I'm really pulling for the Packers in that one too, and the Lions over the Bucks in the other NFC contest. Let's go ahead and assess the Dolphins offense here. You know, I've thought about this for a week. I've watched the Chiefs tape. You guys heard the podcast. I've watched a

little more of film. I've gone back over some more numbers. Just tricky, a tricky spot the Dolphins find themselves in, because I think that they're gonna be just as good that next year as they were this year. But they're gonna have to find the small margins to get the victories, to get more competitive in bigger spots against the better competition. It is what it is. All year, I told you guys, I was gonna be okay, and I was wrong. I was wrong that they would be able to find victories

against those teams. Now, I will argue every single one of those games, besides the Buffalo one was on the road in tough conditions. No less in Kansas City. We did beat Dallas at home, but one in one at home in big games. It's not terrible. I mean, you're damn close to making it too. And no, if you would have gone to and Oh again, you would have reset this entire narrative because I believe you would have

steamrolled Pittsburgh. I believe you're a better team than Houston, which, by the way, real quick, the Texans winning a playoff game, can we just not say that they had a better rebuild.

We've won eighteen more games than the Texans in the last three years, and they got a better draw in the first round in the Cleveland Browns because they were a fourth down conversion from the Colts on a walk in throw on the sideline from Minshew to Tyler Goodson away from going nine to eight and losing the division, mission, the playoffs altogether. So please don't tell me the Texans did a better job in the rebuild. They had a better couple of weeks than Miami. That's that's it. That's

all it is, So shush on that. So when I assessed this offense, here's here's what I came away with. I think we would really benefit from more versatility to beat more defensive looks. Tyreek Hill said as much in the postgame press conference, saying they're gonna have to find ways to beat two man and too high cover two structures, right, and that that's I mean, I think it's pretty obvious how you do that. You get more physical inside with a better interior running game. We have so much we

can do to put you in peril. But developing a change up off of that, whether that's you know, that physical downhill running game, which I think is a big way to get teams out of those two high looks, or expanding the progression, which requires more time for sure to be able to touch more blades of grass in your route concepts, and that requires what better protection and the quarterback. He plays a big role in it two. He has to I think I think te needs to step back

this offseason and kind of recalibrate the mindset. You need the offense to have more rooted basic concepts that they do well, like it's power, like it's duo. You know, hey, here's a five play, Here's a five word play that we can communicate and get out of the huddle of twenty seconds and just go run the damn thing and

convert and be successful and out execute you. Because Mike McDaniel said in his first year here that if someone knows the offense, that's not that big of a deal because the best offense is out there, the best units in this sport can execute when the opposition knows what's coming. He has said that in the past, and that's why he talked about like training camp videos, it's not that big of a deal. The entire Shanahan playbook and the wrinkles and the trees that have existed for decades. Now

it's all available online. You can look it up. Opposing coaches can look it up. But that's not gonna matter because the way you tailor your offense to specific players to specific years, to specific ski E personnel groupings, I

should say the rules within those changes. So it's the Dolphins need to kind of practically preach in that regard and just get better at things that teams can know what's coming, whether it's the stuff that's confusing in their offense, but more rooted basic concepts that just gets you simpler execution where you don't have to be this out smarting three motions on a given snap that you know you have to get communicated on the road in a tough

environment and allowed crowd. Just things that you can get too much more simple. That's kind of my thought process there. We also need better size inside. Even with Connor Williams, we struggled against the Biggins, and we saw in training camp like Raykwon Davis kind of could give Connor Williams some issues because of the size and length. I think you need press and seam beaters. You know a Jake Ferguson from the Cowboys was a really good example of that.

You know, Derham Smith is a nice player, a really good blocker. Julian Hill as well, just not really that top tier, like I know he can get on top of a linebacker and go make a tough catch in traffic. We just I think that's something the Dolphins probably need this offseason. Although it's not like some miracle like you know, grow that you're just going to pop in there and it's going to change things. You have to kind of

be intentional about it. My assessment of Tua here. So I want to go through just kind of the progression of what I've put together the last week of thinking about this, And I saw a quarterback again in the last one and a half games, two and a half games because Buffalo, well, the first half, because Buffalo is actually really damn good. I thought those two long touchdown

drives were a thing of beauty. The pick was terrible, but man, he hit some big time throws in that first half, and then the second half fell off after a bad second half against the Ravens and a horrible performance against the Chiefs. But what I saw was a quarterback that I think lost faith and trust in what he was doing, which was compounded in an elements game, an element that I'm not sure that he's suited for. Like,

that's tough. I get it, especially when you have three special talents within the conference who all play in cold weather cities. We'll do the quarterback rankings on the Monday podcast. I'll tell you right now the top three quarterbacks in the league for me, not in order, our Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson. So that's the kind of the gauntlet you have to go through in the AFC if you don't win your division and get home playoff games.

And Tua certainly takes his blunt of the blame for that. In fact, I think he needs recalibrated. He needs a happy medium between protect yourself and being aggressive or patient if it comes to hanging in the pocket to let something develop. They're just finding ways to make plays last a little bit longer from his perspective, and I trust

that he will do that. But there are two things that I think most attribute to those incredulous habits, right unsatisfactory habits, in case we didn't have a dictionary or the source nearby. First, the circumstances, the combination of different lineups.

You know, four players on this offense exceeded seven hundred snaps one to a seventy three Austin Jackson, seventy four Leam Miikeenberg and eighty one Durham Smith Lester Cotton played the sixth most snaps on your offense this year and Jalen Waddle was out only out snapped Cedric Wilson by thirty reps. If I told you that going into the year,

you say we're gonna have some problems offensively, Travis. These are just from game participation numbers from a camp injury before Game one for Jalen Waddle all the way through the ankle spray on Christmas Eve. He barely practice all

year long. He was in the concussion protocol early in the year after the Patriots hit in Week two that strained oblique in training camp wiped out all of camp and then pretty much all of the preseason, and then into Week one he was limited in the game against the Chargers, and then a twisted knee where he gets rolled up on the second play in Germany against the Chiefs and takes some time to come back from. Then the ankle sprain was after he got removed from the

game for getting an eye poked against Dallas. It is just almost comical what this team went through, and Waddle

is a perfect example of that. Like his production was way down and still had a thousand yards, but the production that he is used to experiencing last year that we saw, that's the kind of player that he is, and we talked about on the tape all year how there was options to get the football to him, but really I think his limited capacity from injuries was what really kind of derailed his year from a production standpoint from what we're used to, and that's what the entire

roster went through. First, before we talk more about this, let's go ahead and hear from Chris Career on how the injuries impacted the season for the Miami.

Ravens did. But I think back to when the best wide receiver in the NFL talking about practice time and wild not being available and where he most start missing practice late in the year and the offensive line combinations.

Remember when the best wide receiver in the league dropped two critical passes the same week that he had to leave practice because his house was set on fire, or the ankle injury he had that directly led to the loss that prevented that You know, that could have prevented that semblance of a collapse, because you would have put Miami at home versus Pittsburgh in the first game of the playoffs, an easy win, and then the Texans in the second round, a team that were better than by far.

What about a left tackle who never practices. What about switching centers several times throughout the year Connor and Connor out Liam in Liam out Lester. How about signing Jonathan Harrison in the middle of the season and thirteen different offensive line combinations in eighteen games. Speaking of that line,

the variation is the second point. The starters were very good, but the depth in this league at that spot, it's just so tough to be good seven, eight, nine, ten guys deep, and you can find ways to mitigate the issues that presents. And that's what this team did all year long. They mask some of the issues they had with the injuries on defensively and offensively. Because think about this, there's five linemen that play every snap on thirty two teams,

which means they're one hundred and sixty offensive lineman. I don't think there's one hundred and sixty good offensive lineman in the NFL. I don't think that there's one hundred and twenty. So you have several guys that are relied upon to play as opening days starters who just aren't, you know, capable of competing with the many athletic pass rushers and defensive tackles and guys up front that are

just freaks these days. So to expect to have your ninth and tenth guy be on the field dominating, it's not realistic. And that's why I always say Dolphins fans use a standard for the Dolphins that's not held to any and it's not tethered to anything in reality. Just go look at go watch other games like one time, we'll always see quarterbacks missopen throw as offensive line issues have leaks like it happens across the league. Now, I do think they did a fantastic job scheming around it.

The quarterback did a great job navigating it, and there were plenty of wins as well. But when you step back and assess, you can see how damaging that is to an offense over the course of a long, long football season. And yes, a lot of the production is a product of offensive philosophy, but the real loss was in the running game. The interior movement regression became way too much and then long third and downs that come

from that with disruptive timing, it just didn't work. These things snowball and get into other areas like can you You can often ug on a weed and trace it back to the route right, and the route was that we just didn't have enough time on the grass together, especially late in the year, for this timing rhythm based offense in a road environment to compete in bad conditions like it was the perfect storm in that KC game, and I will agree the entire year was lost on

the Buffalo game it was, or the Titans game. However you want to shake that out. Miami had to find a way to get that division championship and play home games and avoid that perfect storm. But the injuries you couldn't avoid that, And then the conditions you could have avoided that, but you didn't because of injuries and poor play, And then that's part of the offensive operation thing. Like I wish I could tell you I have a concerted effort or a concerted point on the podcast here that

I can tell you just fix it this way. But I think it goes back to just having more simpler concepts that you can go to and execute in road environments to make sure you're not having those situations. Because Tua talked about the communication issues, lack of time on the grass with the guys, and how that can make this timing offense really kind of skip a beat and wind up getting production like you saw in the wild

card playoffs. So let's go ahead and pin it right there, take a break, come back and pick it up on the exact same topic. We have a lot more to Colm talking about this football team where to go in the off season. That's all next Draft Time podcast to your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation, to recap the first segment and where I think things went wrong and where they could get better. Let's just go ahead and start here. Better Health, right, isn't that

a website? Better health is first adding a physical interior presence, developing counter punches. You know, maybe it is Derek Henry full seam ahead downhill into your two high looks, have fun tackling this guy with a light box. And then of course the recalibrated quarterback. Those are some things that I an amateur, right, that I think we can do better and where I'm pouring my resources this offseason. I wouldn't mind seeing swings at filling the third receiver with

a rookie hit as well. That happens all the time, because damn it, when you needed Braxon Barrios or Cedric Wilson to separate inside with three week gos when there were double coverage on either side on the perimeter, they couldn't do it. And that's a big deal. You got to find someone that can do it. And we seed all the time in the National Football League. Late round draft picks, Puka Nakua, Tank Dell. These guys coming to the league and they have big impacts. Miami needs a

player like that. We'll talk about that more in just a second. The other good news is we still do have really, really, really good players. I saw someone complaining about the players that might leave. Two is not going anywhere. Tyreek's not going anywhere. Wattle's not going anywhere. Devon a Chan's not going anywhere, Zach Seedeler's not going anywhere. Jalen Phillips, Bradley Chubb, Jalen Ramsey, Javon Holland there's a lot of

good football players on this team. You just are gonna have to find a way because I think we can mow through the bad teams once again, but just learn how to have that CounterPunch against good teams. Win one or two more of those, and you're gonna get multiple home playoff games our schedule next year. Speaking of that, speaking of having all the best games or all the best teams be on the road, it ain't like that next year. It's probably gonna be a lot easier next year.

Not to mention we're gonna play more than just two of the six at home where you went one and one and zero four. Right, That's why I probably in fact, let's go ahead and just take a look at this real quick and look, this stuff changes annually. Here's the disclaimer. Even during the course of the season, schedules will change.

I don't think the Week two Patriots were anything close to the Week seventeen Patriots, which makes me think the road game in prime time in Week two was actually kind of an impressive win back against the Patriots in Week two, whereas when they played the Bills in Week seventeen with Bailey Zappi and like a team that just wanted to get the heck to their U hauls and to vacation. It's a different type of football game. And we won that shootout with the Chargers in Week one.

How many people picked the Chargers to go to the Super Bowl? I know Greg Rosenthal did, NFL dot Com guy. There was plenty of others as well. And they were sub five hundred with their quarterback and didn't win a game without him, And they just changed their perception change entirely from who they were in August to who they

were in December. That's the point, Like, wouldn't have been nice to have gotten the Eagles in Week sixteen instead of Week seven when they were in the midst of a ten to one stretch compared to a stretch where they finished one and six to end it. So there isn't a ton to glean from this, But I think you can assess these teams with what it might look like this offseason and which directions they can go, and who is in position to be a threat this year

and who is not. And when I look at the schedule this year compared to what it was a season ago, I think that you can very much assess how the schedule is easier in this regard. Let's go ahead and start here. Home games. Buffalo, right, a good team with an elite quarterback that we have to find a way to beat. You have to beat Buffalo at home. Lose in Buffalo for all I care, but you have to beat them at home. And doing that would to me guarantee seven and one at home, maybe even eight to

oh beat the nine ers. But would I just the home schedule is going to be faarable for the Dolphins this year, which obviously puts you in great shape to go on the road and try to win six of the nine games you have on the road. All of a sudden, you're talking about twelve thirteen wins. So Buffalo at home, biggest game you'll have in the entire calendar all year long. The Jets at home. I just can't take them seriously, even with their forty year old quarterback

returning from an achilles, sociopathic, libelist loser loaner. I just expect to sweep them and do it by a combined score of sixty four to thirteen. Again, I'll worry about the Jets when they prove we should worry about the Jets. Patriots brand new coach, and I like Gerardmeo. I think

it's probably going to work out for him. But to kind of go to a coach off the same tree that was already aging himself out of the league and now you have a total rebuild with an offense that has zero talent on that offense and probably your rookie quarterback, I think we can not really worry about that team for a couple of years. The Titans new coach they fired a great one. Is the next one going to be as good? Most likely not total rebuild. The quarterback

as will love us the guy. The only evantage they had at us in that game, I thought was Mike Rabel and that coaching staff that out coached us in that game. So I like that as a potential rebuild team that we can destroy in our house. The Jaguars, to me, the most overrated quarterback in the NFL right now, a dreadful defense that wiped the staff clean on that side in our house. In a rebuild, get him early too. Maybe I think that's a game that you should probably win.

The Raiders total rebuild. Are they going to bring back Pierce? We don't know yet. Probably no DeVante Adams stuck in that Jimmy g contract. Is it going to be Aidan O'Connell. There's gonna be a new coach there, most likely. Don't like their chances. The Cardinals potentially dangerous, but they're in year two of a gut down rebuild. The quarterback changes. Thinks Kyler Murray is a great player, but we should

be by far the superior team in this one. Who's coming all the way across the coast to play a different level of heat right dry heat in Arizona humid down here in South Florida. And then the last one the forty nine Ers. They're a better team than us. Tough game, but have to imagine it goes in primetime most likely. But yeah, we have three games on our schedule that I think are above the rest. The first two are against the Bills on the road in a

home and this one. Because these road games, even though we've seen a couple of teams here and there show some bite, I don't think any of them are going to be better teams than us, besides maybe Buffalo. But the Niners game, that one stands out. But that's home schedule. You kidding me, Like that's at least six and two, is it? Not? On the road? Bills? Yeah, if you win this, I think you go a direct path to the division championship. Don't even stop by, Go collector two

hundred bucks and go to the division championship. Because winning m Buffalo is just it's hard to do. We have to do that. Sometimes we don't have to. But if you go five and one in the division with the road loss at Buffalo, it is what it is. Jets see above, Patriots cea above in the road. I don't need to explain those again. The Texans, yes, stroud balled against Cleveland, but they also again talked about it earlier. Shouldn't even be in the playoffs if Tyler Goodson catches

a routine swing pass. They missed the playoffs all together, plus the games indoors. They still have a long way to go before that roster is complete. Go back and watch some of their games earlier this year. There are some roster holes for the Texans, and they're gonna have to really spend big and kind of have a new piece of that football team. But their quarterback is great, so that's always a tough battle, especially on the road.

The Colts, who plays quarterback for them, Anthony Richardson gonna be the starter when the year begins, but he got hurt like five times this year, so depending on when the game is, who the heck knows? Who the hell you get? Heck and hell, But it's another cold weather game that's wiped out by a dome, right so that's kind of nice. And I just don't like these These teams are not better than Miami, man, Like you might say so because you're mad in emotional right now, but

they weren't all year long. The Browns pretty good roster, but their cap situation, like we'll talk about Miami's cap situation in a minute, this is a truly bad one because they owe a quarterback next year sixty three million dollars who is not very good. Disaster, and they were a kind of a quarterback position that was a disaster all year long outside of the four week magic carpet, right Joe Flacco, even with a two hundred and eighty million dollar guy like I don't worry about that offense.

Their defense is pretty good this last year, but that's hard to sustain. So we'll see. I think Miami's a better football team, but that could be a cold weather game that you look at down the line, one of the kind of in between games there. How about the Seahawks, another total rebuild team which is like six on this Dolphins schedule this year. Gonna have a new coach who probably gets a new quarterback, and that defense has to be rebuilt because the structure of it under Pete Carroll,

they're not going to run that antique defense anymore. The rams second year of a near total rebuild Stafford was the difference. I think if he plays in that game, down the road, then that's a tough one. If he doesn't, you're gonna win. You're gonna win it going away, even on the road. But warm Weather City in a dome against the Rams, whose roster is not anywhere near as good as ours. Their quarterback is great, but if he

misses a game, they can't go with him. And he misses a lot of game or without him, I should say, and he does miss a lot of games. And the Packers, who suddenly look like world beaters, but they actually scored seventeen points against the Bears in a must win game. Two weeks ago, they scored what was it was it? Thirteen points against the Panthers in a must win game. Like, don't let one game make you think that's who a team is forever. It's just not how it works. The

Packers were two and five at one point. They couldn't move the football save their lives. And Jordan Love was out of town. Right, he can't play, Travis, You were wrong about that guy. Plus they're a mess on defense. Now I like that their offense to grow from here because they're built around first and second year players. But my whole point here, guys, that could be a cool

weather game. My whole point here is this schedule, based upon where these teams are, with their offseason resources, with the coaching structures, the quarterback, it's going to be a lot more favorable than what this year was, which was the defending champs on the road, the defending NFC champs on the road, the best team in the NFL on the road in eight. In Week seven team Buffalo and

there literally they're two hottest points of the season. If you get Buffalo like in Week twelve when they were terrible, you probably beat them, right, But that's not how it goes. So the schedule this year was really tough. It played out that way this year. I don't think it's gonna be that same way. So potentially six cold weather games, you always have three in division, so it's probably gonna

be more like two, three, four in that range. Packers will be cold if it's a certain time year, Browns two, Seattle if it's before Thanksgiving. It's never too cold. Probably wet though, But then you also have to say, well, the three division opponents could also get early season dates down here in South Florida, and that evens that out

a little bit. But then weirdly, most of our home games are a team from a desert, a team from California, the colder part of California, but still another Florida team, and then a Nashville team, which isn't without its own humidity. If there's one good thing about losing the division, it's that you don't have a Roady in Baltimore, which you would have had. It's no trip to Detroit, although Lambo's not any better, but Detroit probably a better football team

right now. But yeah, and then it means the Raiders are not the Chiefs. That's a pretty big win. But I look at that home schedule again, this isn't how the schedule works, but are there two games on there that stand out above the rest? Like I just think Miami's in a good shape and a good spot there. And then just a personal note here, I have to think the Seattle, LA Swing is a one west coast trip thing and might be one that I try to get on myself because I want to go home and

see some family back home in Seattle. But uh, just please have the second leg of the NFL be in Seattle and make it in September so I can go to Seattle for a week in September. That's my that's my only request. I don't ask much. Let's go ahead and take our last break right there, come back and do the defensive assessment. That's going to be a real quick and then I'll also finish up with some league

leader numbers. I have for you guys, some more stuff on TUA I think you're gonna want to hear, plus my most important players who need to step up in twenty twenty four. All that next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by AutoNation. Let's go ahead and continue here with our end of year assessment. Continue on defense and another sidebar. I see that you're being led to believe by some that Fangio is potentially considering dipping. I hate this time of year, man, like,

I don't even get the information game. And when it comes to this stuff, so like so and so reports, then everyone gets in a tizzy. And then the actual thing happens, you know, a month later or two weeks later, and it's different, and then it's like everybody freaked out because of something that could have happened that didn't happen. I'd never understand that everybody freaked out that they hadn't

signed an offensive tackle two years ago. And then Lyell Collins signed to the Bengals, and everyone started calling for Chris careers head doesn't prioritize the offensive line, he's not good enough. And then like two days later, they signed the best left tackle on the market and a potential

future Hall of Famer. And then Collins completely busted to the point that he didn't see the second year of that contract of a huge free agent contract, and Toront's had his injury issues for sure, but you've gotten what is it, twenty one games of elite left tackle play, which is twenty one games more than what Collins gave the Bengals. My point is this, I wish the loudest, the local minority of Twitter and social fans and reporters alike, I wish they held themselves to the same standard they

hold other decision makers like Chris Queer two. Because where Greer Bat's a proven you know, fifty percent whatever it is, your mythological preten GM batting average of one fifty six just ain't holding up, brother, trust me. And if I can needle that point a little bit further and I'll do this. Don't think I'm not petty enough to do this. I did it. Somebody on Twitter who said after the Titans loss, we would not win another game because you're emotional.

I get it. And you said that Connor williams absence was the reason for that they were not gonna win another game. And all I had to do was search that person's at and the terms Connor Williams, and sure enough that back in September when the missnaps were happening, that person wanted Connor Williams bench. In fact, I said, I saw a tweet he said, cut Connor Williams and

put Liam in. So you all aren't as swift as y'all think you are, and you just know, you just know when an account will have takes, Like at some of the most predictive stuff you can see in the entire world. You can usually tie someone's political stance of their football takes on team like go back, try it, you'll see what I mean. So all of that is to say, can we chill on vic is unhappy? Just chill He's here, he's the DC, and with that we can build off of it. Now, I do think there

are some chances. It's maybe, you know, maybe to let him get some of the guys that he thinks run his system best. Like clearly he didn't have an affinity for camp Smith and for Chaining Tendall. And we'll find out about those guys next year. But I think there's an opportunity here to let Vic maybe have a little bit more say on who gets pt and who comes into the lineup, because all camp he told us like, now we're getting there, we've got some pieces. We gotta

find some others. Okay, let Vic cook, because he's clearly pretty good at this. But quite frankly, I don't have a lot on defense. I think getting guys back, some small tweaks here and there, the potential next step if we cannot keep Christian is the big one. But let's say that ninety four is back, and what real changes do you think need to happen, Because despite the Ravens game, which was a one off down the stretch, this is

a defense that played really well down the stretch. Back to my point about Twitter, once again, I saw an actual tweet the other day. Let me pull it up. Actually, let me pull this up on my phone real quick. It's it's the tweet is an image of Ryan Tannehill's career numbers for the Miami Dolphins, and he just quotes that and says Tua is coming back next year. The sooner you accept that, the better end quote, and like, okay,

there's like twelve things wrong with that tweet. First, none of those numbers are ever as good as what Tua has done the last two years, not even close. Right, Remind me when we were first in offense and second in scoring under Tannehill. Go ahead and remind me. Remind me when we led the league in yard at passing guard. I remember that, or or leand league and passerrating as a twenty four year old for the first time in the NFL since Dana Marino nineteen eighty five. Like, damn man,

what are we doing? But wait, there's more. What did Ryan Tannehill do when he left here? Oh? He just became a top five quarterback by every statistical metric, wins and losses, yards per attempt, passer rating QBR, vertical passing game, every metric top five for two and a half years. He also led the Titans to the AFC Championship game, back to the playoffs and then back into the playoffs as a one seed in his three years there. So I thought you guys didn't like Tannehill, But now he's

some measure of proof. Pick a damn lane, that's my thing. But hold on, there's one last one. I reply to him says, we will lose more games than this year. Just watch and yeah, winning eleven games is tough, but we were not gonna lose more than that. I promise you that. And the reply to that, that bad reply is gotta hope and pray the defense can all return

and be as dominant as they were this season. What what you mean the defense that ranked twenty first and scoring that one with the offense that was second, What the hell? What are we doing? Jesus man? So I'm not sure there's a lot that needs to happen. I think the numbers became the numbers because of a slow start, as they kind of found out who they were, learned the rules the defense, how the defense orchestrates as one instead of eleven individual pieces. You'll have decisions to make

on guys like Deshaun Elliott. I don't think Brandon Jones' raeq one it was is a tough decision Andrew Van Ginkle. But the majority of the corps is locked in and ready to roll. But if there's things you saw throughout the year and thought we can get better there, well, first you can be healthier, but sometimes it comes down to luck like that. But I would say better pass defense in the middle of the field. I thought we caught we got beat by those deep crossers from tight alignments,

by tight ends. Just the general construction. I think the rules in the back end when you didn't have certain guys available was an issue. So finding way to get that connective tissue put back together. I just felt like there was an area we can improve in in the passing defense in the middle of the field. But then again, that's something that can also come from another year in the system. It would also help to not have your two primary signal callers miss essentially the final seven games

of the year. Javon played in two but he was limited, and Baker played in one and a half games the game that he was hurt and Buffalo in the finale. That's tough, but I do think you can get better in your middle of the field coverage. It's the slot position wasn't good enough this year, your safety coverage was not good enough, and your linebacker coverage was not good enough. Finding ways to get better in all three of those

areas are kind of my big keys here. The biggest thing is probably the Edges coming back from their injuries. I trust Chubb and Phillips will be even better. But how long that process takes, that's probably just the biggest question that I would have. All right, let's go ahead

and close up with some numbers here. We'll do more in depth numbers on the position by position exit interview pieces next week and into the end of January, but real quick before that, let's go ahead and put a bow on the mini overall assessment and just run this audio here from Chris Career. Yeah.

Max Topolitano, We've had a lot of conversations. They've given us a lot of flexibility with multiple options of ways we can you know, be creative, and so hats off to them, just you know, through their work and grind on things, And so Mike Brandon and I will have a lot of discussions, and we'll talk with Steve as we get through here, and we'll try and keep as many of the players here that we can.

forgive me for that. But our quarterback this year, among QB's with at least three hundred and fifty passing attempts, which means you played more than half the games, he was third in completion percentage first in yards ninth, most in attempts by the way fifth, and touchdown passes fourth, and success rate second, and yards per attempt fifth, and passer rating fourth, and sack percentage second, in net yards per attempt fourth, and EPA per play fourth, in completion

percentage over expected and that obviously leads to fourth and EPA plus cpoe composite. That's a stat that a lot of folks love to measure their quarterbacks by, unless you're two, because apparently tu and party don't count for their stats. So how about that? How about that man? But how about this for the playmaker crowd, because Tuoa has got to be a bigger playmaker, right He finished fourth in Big time throws. This is measured by distance of the

throw plus receiver separation. He had thirty six Big time throws and you know who had more? Dak, Josh Allen, and Matthew Stafford. That's it. Literally all guys that have been attached to the MVP Award at one point or another. This past month before Lamar Jackson kind of took it over, and this got me thinking, who are the annual top five Big time throw contenders? How many did they have? And what can we glean from that crop of players?

So this year it was Dak forty one, Allen thirty nine, Stafford thirty seven, two thirty six, Jordan Love thirty five. Last year it was Allen fifty two, My god, Mahomes thirty eight, Burrow thirty seven Brady thirty six, Gino thirty five. In twenty twenty one it was Stafford forty seven, Alan and Brady both had forty four, Murray had forty three, and Burrow had forty one. It sure seems like the guys that land in that company are dare we say, elite quarterbacks? I don't know. I have a lot more

on that. Let's go ahead and say it for the Quarterback Exit Interview podcast on Monday. But the last point here, because I cannot help myself. I think the natural reaction to this is I don't care about these numbers, Travis. When playoff games, I test b ba ba ba, and like, there are some of those takes out there from people that I will take time to have a conversation with you know who you are. There are also some of those takes from people out there who, let's just say,

like I always say this, pick a front. Do you know what a front even means? Not four three three four? Pick a front a grouping five to zero and draw how you would fit a run from that front against an offensive personal grouping. Because if you can't do that, you know, I guess our nature to argue, especially since the advent of social media. But like, let's just say, sometimes I wish that people would replace their takes with questions. If you don't know something, ask about it. Don't ignorantly

spew about it. Ask questions. I like to provide this context because A I don't think anything in sports is black and white, and B it informs you for future projections and gives you an idea of what to expect. So because of this context and that big time throw stat, there's far more to extrapolate from that than there is from one and a half really really really really bad football games from your quarterback with the roster that had just withered away with no practice time cohesion together on

top of conditions that don't suit what you do. And I think that that can be the big takeaway from your eye tests whatever, Like this team is not suited to play in the cold, for sure, But I also think that one and a half games and using that purely as your extrapolation, well, that's why fans are bad gms. That's operating on recency bias and emotion. Decision makers in this league or any capitalist industry, they don't think that way.

They operate on larger timelines and trajectory right, because for a twenty five year old quarterback whose superpower is something he gets better with age at opposed to Josh Allen, who's going to decrease in that. Like physical skills. We saw Russell Wilson fall off a cliff. It's going to happen to all those guys. But Tua has the skills to play into his thirties at a high, higher, higher, higher level. Because Drew brees best quarterback play of his

career was in the thirties. All the guys that play like that, that's what happens. It's just something to hold on to. Raheem Moster was first in rushing touchdowns six and success rate, tenth in rushing yards and he was sick among backs and yards per carry and fifth and first downs eight. Chan was twenty six and rushing on just one hundred and three carries. The next lowest number of carries in the top twenty five was one forty eight, so forty five more carries and that was Lamar Jackson

a quarterback. None of the other backs had less than two hundred who were in the top twenty five and rushing he's a special talent. He led the NFL with seven point eight yards per carry and was just behind Raheem and success rate at sixth in the NFL. Tyreek was first in receiving yards, second in receptions he tied the league lead and receiving touchdowns with thirteen. He was first in yards per route ran fifth and yards per

target among receivers who had one hundred targets. I think it's really cool that Wilkins, Sealer Chubb were all in the top thirty in the league in sacks. Nobody else in the NFL can say that Christian trailed just Matdabuike, Aaron Donald and Chris Jones and QB hits. Among defensive tackles, Chubb tied the league lead with six forced fumbles. He

was thirteenth in edge pressures. That's seventy and sixteen games, a little over four per game, So give him five more for the seventeenth game and suddenly he would have been ninth. In QB pressures. He was also eighth and stops, which just tackles For defensive wins. Wilkins and Seiler both top ten among dts and pressures. They were eight to ninth. David Long was six among linebackers and QB pressures, and Ramsey was targeted forty two times this year and had

a passer rating allowed of forty eight point nine. Jalen Johnson for the Bears saw more targets with a pr allowed of thirty three point three. That was it in terms of better passer ratings allowed than Jialen Ramsey. All right, last segment here twenty twenty four players that I think need to step up in a big way because they could be massive ripple effects on your roster. Cam Smith, and I also added Ethan Bonner. Miami needs a cornerback

on a rookie contract to assert themselves. It's an expensive position. We can't really afford to go back into the draft class at it. I don't think we can afford to get another big contract on the books Beside Jileen Ramsey, Miami needs a young player at cornerback to step up. It starts with Cam Smith. I think he has all the tools in the world, and I think there's something there with Ethan Bonner. Cater Kohu go back to your rookie season production as well is off also an option.

Two really important players, Cam Smith and Ethan Bonner. Eric Azukama, he had a pretty fun role carved out early in the year, and we learned it wasn't gonna be a season or a career ending injury that he suffered, and he's looking forward to getting back to playing football. I do think receiver is very high on my offseason board, whether it's a free agent or a mid round draft pick. Miami needs a better separator outside of what they had outside of Waddle and Tyreek Hill, So Eric Azukama is

on the list. Maybe brilliant Sanders two, but I would I probably would go different route. Julian Hill rook the young players right, young tight end who can block his butt off. If he can take the step in the passing game and become a real big threat that way, it would be huge for this Dolphins offense to have a couple of years of cheap production from that position. And then last one is Keon Smith, Liam Mikenberg and Brian Hayes, the middle guy. We've seen a lot of him,

so we kind of know to expect there. But Keon Smith showed some real bite this year. If you can wind up getting him to be a starting tackle for you, it's you're probably gonna draft that spot or try to go big a left tackle if toront doesn't come back. But between Keon Smith, Leam Miikenberg and Brian Hayes, if you can get some young production from those three guys next year on your offensive line, would go a long way towards this roster rounding out in a very good way.

That's my time long podcast, over forty five minutes. I thought it was gonna be under thirty. Didn't happen that way. Please subscribe, rate, review the podcast on Apple Spotify, where you get your podcast from. Go ahead and follow me on social at Winkle NFL. Check out the fish Tank Podcast with Seth and Juice to Brian Walker. Episode I think is out next week. Also the YouTube channel for media Availabilities, Dolphins Today and so much more. And last button,

not least Miami Dolphins dot Com Until next time. Fins Up, callin and Cameron Daddy, He's coming home.